Category: The Big Picture

Failure of western democracy, tensions between the US and China, the Arab Spring and other major global events.

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The Escalation Trap | Prof. Robert Pape

“We don’t have a strategy to win.”

Air power expert, Professor Robert Pape (University of Chicago), says air power campaigns don’t effect regime change.

He warns of the “smart bomb illusion,” where precision targeting gives the illusion of control over escalation. We are distracted by the success of precision air strikes, but they cause escalation, and we don’t see the long war coming.

Acknowledgement

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US-Iran Update

From Vali Nasr, professor at Johns Hopkins University and author of Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History:

The US appears poised to launch a major military attack on Iran. The last round of talks between the two countries was an opportunity for Iran to avert war but Tehran offered little to Washington. That is not because Iran’s rulers are too obdurate and caught up in their old ways of thinking. Rather they are putting little stock in diplomacy and increasingly see war as inevitable. They see talks more as a trap than a solution and seem to view an unavoidable war as more cathartic than a weak deal. They are focused on how to manage it — and even use it to their advantage.(FT.com)

From Linus Höller at Defense News:

BERLIN — Bulgaria’s Sofia International Airport briefly suspended civilian air operations twice over the weekend while a fleet of American military aircraft staged at the facility, fueling speculation that Washington is positioning forces ahead of a potential strike on Iran.

Photographs circulating on social media showed at least six KC-135 Stratotanker refueling aircraft from the 6th Air Refueling Wing at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, along with C-17 and C-130 cargo planes and Boeing 747s typically used for troop transport, parked at the airport’s Terminal 1, according to Obektivno.BG.

Bulgaria’s Ministry of Defense confirmed the U.S. Air Force presence, describing the deployment as support for “training related to NATO’s enhanced vigilance activities,” …..

Bulgarian investigative journalists have tracked more than 120 U.S. Air Force aircraft that crossed the Atlantic within days, including four dozen F-16s, three squadrons of F-35A stealth fighters, and 12 F-22 Raptors.

Similar deployments, including F-22s staged at RAF Lakenheath, preceded last June’s Operation Midnight Hammer strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

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Israel strikes first

Summary

  • Israel struck nuclear facilities and military command structures in Iran
  • The government declared a state of emergency in anticipation of retaliatory attacks from Iran
  • US Secretary of State Rubio indicated that the US had been notified but was not involved in the strikes
  • Iran had earlier threatened to attack US bases in the Middle East in response to any attack

Israeli Premier & F35 Fighter Jet

Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu with F35 Fighter Jet

Israel launched dozens of air strikes targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities, ballistic missile factories, senior military commanders, and nuclear scientists on Friday, warning that this would be a prolonged operation. (FT & Reuters)

The strikes come after an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) resolution on Thursday declared Iran in noncompliance with its nuclear safeguards obligations for the first time in nearly 20 years….Iran’s uranium enrichment has reached 60% purity — a dramatically higher level that is a short technical step from the weapons-grade purity level of 90%. “A country enriching at 60% is a very serious thing. Only countries making bombs are reaching this level,” IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said in 2021. (CNBC)

Iran’s Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh told reporters Wednesday that if nuclear talks fail and “a conflict is imposed on us,” the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps “will target all U.S. bases in the host countries.”

A source familiar with the situation and a U.S. official told CBS News that the Trump administration was weighing options regarding how to support Israeli military action without leading it…
The source said the options are unlikely to include direct participation by U.S. B-2 bombers that carry the type of bombs that can penetrate Iran’s deep underground fortified uranium enrichment facilities at Fordow and Natanz. Without that type of strike, it is unlikely Israeli military action could destroy the underground portions of Iran’s program, and thus solo military action by Israel is presumed to be limited in its capability to fully eliminate the program. (CBS)

Conclusion

Israel won’t back down (I-W-B-D).

Israel faces an existential threat from a nuclear-armed Iran and will strike first in an attempt to eliminate the threat. The strikes may delay Iran’s uranium-enrichment program, but are unlikely to prevent the country’s leaders from pursuing their nuclear weapons goal.

The only way to eliminate the threat would be a full-scale invasion, which is likely beyond Israel’s capability. The US will offer support but is unlikely to become directly embroiled in the conflict unless attacked by Iran.

Oil prices are expected to spike due to supply concerns, while a flight to safety will likely boost gold demand.

Acknowledgments

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Give War a Chance | Edward Luttwak

UN Peacekeepers in Bosnia

UN soldiers at a NATO base near Brcko, Bosnia, March 1998 | Juergen Schwarz, Reuters

This 1999 opinion in Foreign Affairs magazine, by Edward N. Luttwak, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is relevant to today’s conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza:

An unpleasant truth often overlooked is that although war is a great evil, it does have a great virtue: it can resolve political conflicts and lead to peace. This can happen when all belligerents become exhausted or when one wins decisively….

A cease-fire tends to arrest war-induced exhaustion and lets belligerents reconstitute and rearm their forces. It intensifies and prolongs the struggle once the cease-fire ends—and it does usually end….

Read more at Foreign Affairs

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Regime change in America

This article by Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic is confronting:

There’s a Term for What Trump and Musk Are Doing – How regime change happens in America

She describes the destruction of the 100-year-old US civil service and its replacement with a patronage system in which appointees must demonstrate fealty to a patron—either President Trump or Elon Musk—rather than the Constitution.

Anne has written extensively on autocracies. Her early books include Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine, Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944–1956, and Gulag: A History, which won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction. She is also the author of the recent New York Times best-sellers Twilight of Democracy and Autocracy, Inc: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World.

Conclusion

We are witnessing the end of an era. The damage done in the next two years is unlikely ever to be restored.

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Iran attacks Israel

Markets are overshadowed by news that Iran directly attacked Israel in retaliation for the bombing of its embassy in Damascus which killed two high-ranking Iranian generals.

Iran

This is a significant escalation in Iran’s on-going proxy war against Israel.

Russia and its allies are emboldened by the US failure to support Ukraine and are stepping up their attacks on Western allies.

Iran

Mick Ryan (retired Australian Maj. General) writes:

…What is Iran’s ultimate goal here and its strategy to achieve it? This is a major shift in the way the Iranians have attacked Israel for years. Proxy forces are normally Iran’s preference in order to keep it at arm’s length from a potential Israeli response. Why has it decided on such a drastic course change in its strategy to confront Israel?

He lays out four options for retaliation — ranging from no direct response to a massive hammer blow to deter a repeat — and concludes:

All of these are possible in the hours and days ahead. All have advantages, as well as considerable disadvantages, for the Israelis. But one thing is certain, the concept of ‘re-establishing deterrence’ against Iran will be an important guiding idea.

And, it is uncertain whether the Iranians are really prepared for what they may have unleashed against their country and the wider region.

Flight to Safety

Given the high level of uncertainty, we can expect a significant flight to safe haven assets. Stocks are expected to weaken, with the S&P 500 breaching support at 5100 to signal a secondary correction.

S&P 500

The S&P 500 Equal-Weighted Index ($IQX) has already warned of a market move to risk-off after breaching support at 6650. A test of support at 6400 is likely.

S&P 500 Equal-Weighted Index ($IQX)

The Russelll 2000 Small Caps ETF (IWM) has similarly breached support at 200, warning of a correction to 190.

Russelll 2000 Small Caps ETF (IWM)

Brent crude is expected to test resistance at $96 per barrel.

Brent Crude

10-Year Treasury yields are already retracing and headed for a test of new support at 4.35%. Respect is likely, however, and would confirm an advance to test resistance at 5.0%.

10-Year Treasury Yield

The Dollar Index may not follow 10-year Treasury yields, with safe haven demand fueling a test of 107.

Dollar Index

Gold saw significant profit-taking on Friday after reaching our target of $2400 per ounce earlier in the day. Retracement is likely to respect support at $2300, followed by a strong advance fueled by safe-haven demand.

Spot Gold

The international contract on the Shanghai Gold Exchange (iAu99.99) is trading at 562 Yuan/gram. This equates to a USD price of $2415 per troy ounce — a sizable premium over Friday’s close at $2344.

Silver has retraced to test support at $28 per ounce. Respect is likely, signaling a test of resistance at $29 per ounce. Breakout above $29 would offer a long-term target of $36 per ounce.

Spot Silver

Bitcoin is consolidating below resistance at $72K. Breakout is likely and would offer a target of $92K, while reversal below support at $64K would warn of a correction to test $52K.

Bitcoin

Conclusion

Escalation in the Iran-Israel conflict is likely to drive crude oil prices to new highs as geopolitical risk rises. Inflationary pressures are expected to climb as a result, reducing the possibility of Fed rate cuts this year.

Other geopolitical factors could intervene, including the Saudis increasing production to hold crude oil prices below $100 per barrel. Above $100 is considered unsustainable by many producers and believed to lead to sharp falls in demand as the global economy contracts in response.

Financial markets, stocks and precious metals are likely to be dominated by safe-haven demand in the weeks ahead. A shift from small caps — and even the broad S&P 500 to the largest “magnificent seven” tech stocks — is expected as investors grow increasingly risk averse. Demand for Gold & Silver is expected to rise. The Dollar is likely to strengthen, along with short-/medium-term Treasuries. But long-term yields are unclear because of conflicting inflation/safe-haven pressures.

Acknowledgements

 

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Scientists say they can use AI to solve a key problem with nuclear fusion | CNN

Inside the JET tokamak, used to conduct major nuclear fusion experiments in the UK - United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority

Inside the JET tokamak, used to conduct major nuclear fusion experiments – UK Atomic Energy Authority

CNN — Scientists pursuing fusion energy say they have found a way to overcome one of their biggest challenges to date — by using artificial intelligence.

Nuclear fusion has for decades been hailed as a near-limitless source of clean energy, in what would be a game-changing solution to the climate crisis. But experts have only achieved and sustained fusion energy for a few seconds, and many obstacles remain, including instabilities in the highly complex process….

Read More at CNN

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Alexei Navalny – the irresistible power of non-violent opposition

The Russian prison service reported that opposition leader Alexei Navalny had died “after falling ill on a walk today,” a few weeks after being transferred to a remote prison in the Arctic circle. Almost dying in 2020, after being poisoned with Novichock by the GRU, Navalny faced a difficult choice. Give up his struggle and live a comfortable life as an exiled dissident in the West or return to Russia where he would almost certainly be arrested and imprisoned on trumped up charges. He chose the latter. A mark of personal courage.

He was no doubt murdered by the regime ahead of the March presidential elections — where he had succeeded in orchestrating non-violent opposition to Russian leader Vladimir Putin from his prison cell.

Here is Navalny’s message to fellow Russians, from the documentary bearing his name:

President Biden’s response to his death:

Russia has a long history of non-violent resistance to oppression, including:

  • Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn — historian and author who raised global awareness of political repression in the gulags in the Soviet Union, awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970;
  • Andrei Sakharov — nuclear physicist who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975 for his efforts in the struggle for human rights in the Soviet Union and for nuclear disarmament; and
  • Another physicist, Boris Nemtsov, who led political opposition to Vladimir Putin until his assassination in 2015.

Alexei Navalny joins the list of global leaders who have dedicated their lives to non-violent opposition to oppression for the betterment of their fellow man:

Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
Martin Luther King Jr.
Nelson Mandela
Bishop Desmond Tutu
and many others, including Aung San Suu Kyi (currently imprisoned in Myanmar) and Vladimir Kara-Murza (imprisoned in Russia), whose courage we should honor.

Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. That is the paradox: what is soft is strong.

~ Lao Tzu/Laozi, the Tao Te Ching (circa 400 BC)

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Thoughts on Israel

We express our sympathy for the people of Israel who have suffered a brutal attack from HAMAS and its backers.

An act of such barbarity is bound to evoke a response and lead to further escalation of violence in the region. But that seems to be the intention.

Martin Indyk, former US Ambassador to Israel (1995-1997 and 2000-2001) and special envoy under President Obama for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations (2013-2014), was asked why this occurred now, after progress seemed to be made on an Israel-Palestine settlement:

I think you have to consider the context at this moment. The Arab world is coming to terms with Israel. Saudi Arabia is talking about normalizing relations with Israel. As part of that potential deal, the United States is pressing Israel to make concessions to the Palestinian Authority—Hamas’s enemy. So this was an opportunity for Hamas and its Iranian backers to disrupt the whole process, which I think in retrospect was deeply threatening to both of them. I don’t think that Hamas follows dictation from Iran, but I do think they act in coordination, and they had a common interest in disrupting the progress that was underway and that was gaining a lot of support among Arab populations. The idea was to embarrass those Arab leaders who have made peace with Israel, or who might do so, and to prove that Hamas and Iran are the ones who are able to inflict military defeat on Israel.

There are talks going on regarding a peace deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and conversations about U.S. security guarantees for Saudi Arabia. In all likelihood, a primary motivation for Hamas and Iran was a desire to disrupt that deal, because it threatened to isolate them. And this was a very good way to destroy its prospects, at least in the near term. Once the Palestinian issue returns to front and center, and Arabs around the Middle East are watching American weapons in Israeli hands killing large numbers of Palestinians, that will ignite a very strong reaction….

….And in terms of escalation, the party to watch most closely is Hezbollah. If the Palestinian death toll rises, Hezbollah will be tempted to join the fray. They have 150,000 rockets they can rain down on Israel’s main cities, and that will lead to an all-out war not just in Gaza but in Lebanon, too. And everybody would get dragged in that situation. (Foreign Affairs)

Conclusion

The aim of the attack was to provoke a violent retaliation which would disrupt an Arab-Israeli peace accord.
Starting another war would play into the perpetrator’s hands.
Netanyahu prides himself on being cautious. Now is the time to show restraint, bolster Israel’s defenses and continue to pursue peace in the region — which would sideline HAMAS and its Iranian backers.

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Russia | Putin in Crisis

From Foreign Affairs, June 24th:

On Friday night, political infighting in Moscow spilled out into the open, with Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, accusing the Russian military of attacking his forces and vowing to retaliate. In messages published on his official Telegram channel, Prigozhin also claimed that all of the Kremlin’s publicly stated reasons for launching the war in Ukraine were lies. Following these developments, Russia’s state security agency, the FSB, opened a criminal case against Prigozhin, accusing him of calling for an armed rebellion….

Russian TV

Prigozhin has seized control of Rostov-on-Don, the major logistical hub for the war in Ukraine, with vast stockpiles of munitions and supplies. He now has complete control of Russia’s ability to continue the war in Ukraine, giving him a strong negotiating position to settle his dispute with the Kremlin.

Rostov-on-Don

Rostov-on-Don Interview

At this stage, an advance on Moscow seems unlikely.

It is dangerous to predict how events will unfold. Already the window for negotiations is closing.

Rostov-on-Don

There are reports of Wagner seizing a second major city on the road to Moscow, meeting little opposition.

Voronezh

Tom Nichols in The Atlantic:

“Think of this conflict not as a contest between the Russian state and a mercenary group, but a falling out among gangsters, a kind of Mafia war…..

But no matter how this ends, Prigozhin has shattered Putin’s narrative, torching the war as a needless and even criminal mistake. That’s a problem for Putin that could outlast this rebellion.”

Michael McFaul, former ambassador to Moscow under the Obama administration, in the Journal of Democracy, February 2023:

Putin’s luck ran out in 2022. By launching a full-scale, barbaric invasion of Ukraine one year ago, Putin has caused horrific bloodshed and suffering in Ukraine, hurting the very “brothers and sisters” he supposedly seeks to “protect” while also failing to achieve most of his war aims. But Putin’s war in Ukraine has also triggered deep damage to his own country, especially to Russia’s armed forces, the economy, society, and, in the long run, to his own regime. Ironically, Putin’s destruction of democracy in Russia decades ago created the conditions for this disastrous decision in 2022 — a decision that may eventually unravel the very autocracy that he constructed and has been consolidating for so long.

Conclusion

Autocracy has two major flaws. First, no one wants to give an autocrat bad news. Dictators only get told what they want to hear, leaving them badly out of touch. Poor decision-making is the inevitable result.

Second, suppression may quell dissent but leaves no release for the buildup of underlying pressures, creating the illusion of stability but fueling the potential to explode into violence at any time.

A breakdown of law and order in Russia, while it may have long-term benefits, is a dangerous situation that could easily spiral out of control. With disastrous consequences not only for the people of Russia but for surrounding regions within Russia’s “sphere of influence”. Belarus, Georgia, Syria, Armenia, Azerbaijan….. all are at risk of unrest as opposing factions attempt to take advantage of a distracted Kremlin.

It also increases the risk of high-risk behavior in Ukraine from the Kremlin.

Zaporizhzia

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